Backed by major philanthropists and investors such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, the ed-tech industry has aggressively pushed the idea of “personalized learning.” But on the ground, the concept remains nebulous, and research evidence remains thin.
~Benjamin Herold. Education Week, September 21, 2017
Will students graduate high school with what they need to go on to college or to achieve a fulfilling career? That’s what every parent wonders and worries about.
Now parents have the added concern of questioning if personalized learning used in their student’s high school is providing adequate preparation.
Education Week’s recent report, “Personalized Learning a Big Challenge in High School Redesign, RAND Finds” should add fuel to the fire of their concern.
The RAND study found that personalized learning implementation in high schools left much to be desired.
The actual RAND report is called “Designing Innovative High Schools: Implementation of the Opportunity by Design Initiative After Two Years,” and it tells about the problems in personalized learning at the high school level. The Education Week summary:
- Lack of time for teachers to create or find lessons and learning materials that are differentiated for each student.
- External pressure to move students towards graduation, whether they had mastered material or not.
- Inconsistent expectations for what “mastery” means.
- Inconsistent access to high-quality data about what students know and can do.
- Lack of quality online learning materials.
And from the RAND report:
- Efforts to personalize instruction and implement mastery-based approaches were often inconsistent and limited by varying access to data, external pressure to advance students at a certain pace, and the significant time required to create instructional materials.
- Persistent teacher vacancies limited collaboration and strained teacher capacity, and principals reported difficulties finding and retaining qualified, experienced teachers.
- High-quality instructional materials were not readily available, and although some teachers reported valuing the autonomy to create their own materials, they struggled to find the time to do so and received limited district support.
- Schools revised their models based on broad feedback, but most schools had yet to develop clear systems for data-driven improvement, instead addressing issues as they arose.
Springpoint Partners in School Design, an outside Bill & Melinda Gates team-backed nonprofit promising to redesign schools, tries to put a happy spin on the problems.
The interpretation of these failures by the rest of us, indicate a breakdown that should be a concern for parents and educators. Here’s the reality of personalized learning.
- When teachers and parents are pushed aside in favor of the ideas of outsiders, who don’t work with students, curriculum goes haywire.
- When programs aren’t appropriately vetted much money is wasted.
- When students don’t get what they need to do well in school, they will come up short at graduation.
- The goals and evaluative measures by teachers in the past weren’t so bad. At least we knew how students were doing.
- Students need real teachers who know how to teach.
- Online learning materials don’t seem to be as good as we are led to believe.
- School districts jumping into this without better information and due diligence are hurting students.
The most frightening is the pushing students towards graduation, whether they had mastered material or not. This was the hyped-up bogus charge that created havoc in America’s high schools in the first place. Now, with interference by corporations, it’s becoming reality.
None of this should be a surprise. There was no research to indicate Common Core or online personalized learning would work. Education Week had a report on that a while back too (referenced below).
RAND will be evaluating a cohort of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded schools—schools the Gates Foundation and Mark Zuckerberg have been pushing that use personalized learning.
We will all be waiting to hear the results. While we are waiting, I heard from a former student from one of the High Tech High Schools Bill Gates likes so much. With her permission, I will share that in my next post.
References
Herold, Benjamin. “Personalized Learning a Big Challenge in High School Redesign, RAND Finds.” Education Week. September 21, 2017.
Herold, Benjamin. “Personalized Learning: What Does the Research Say?” Education Week. October 18, 2016.
These are not the only worries. The most fundamental is that ‘personalised learning’ always under performs ‘socialised learning. How do we know this in the UK? Because the government funded Education Endowment Foundation (EEC) has conducted research that proves it.
https://rogertitcombelearningmatters.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/is-the-eef-failing-to-see-the-wood-for-the-trees/
The problem is that the UK government, like yours in the US wants to promote a marketised education model, in which ‘personalised’ instruction (it’s not proper learning) is cheaper to ‘deliver’..
Deep learning for understanding cannot be achieved by ‘instruction’ based approaches. See
https://rogertitcombelearningmatters.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/why-schools-and-teachers-are-needed-for-deep-learning/
Roger, you always send such interesting posts. I am going to share these both on Face Book. I need to spend more time reading and will start with this. I hope others will read what’s happening in the UK too. It seems like some terms are the same and others are different, but in the end pretty much the same. Thank you, as always.
In Oregon, student members of the Oregon State School Board, as well as others, testified that “personalized learning” wasn’t working for them. Some said the programs didn’t approach learning from more than one angle the way teachers do. Others said the material was of poor quality. Others said it was so boring they couldn’t concentrate, and they learned best through human interaction.
Yet the Board voted to increase digital learning anyway, demonstrating stubborn denial of policy effects and disrespect for student input.
Students! That’s sad when we want young people to be responsible and address their own learning needs. I wonder if outsiders were working with the board to get that agenda passed.
Thank you for sharing, Rachel.. This is especially interesting.
Parents should be able to eliminate digitized learning (at least for their child) by opting-out of internet at school. Parents should let their child’s school know of the family preference is to have their students complete internet assignments at home, under direct parental supervision. It is a simple and effective way to return to books and pencils.
Programs like this have been used for years to get credits for students who cannot or will not do the work in regular classes. Small wonder that there is failure here. The very students who need the most personal attention are being placed behind a screen to get them through with the process. They often like it, because it gets them to where they want to go quicker.
One student I know went through one of those programs, or rather I pulled him through it with the help of his recruiter, then spent three tours in Afghanistan as a marine. What he learned in front of the computer did not teach him anything. What he learned in the marines he could have learned without his experience in front of a computer.
I have heard of remote areas of Nebraska that use screen instruction to offer advancement in the technical fields. There is not much other choice at places in the beautiful Sand Hills region where cattle outnumber people by large margins.
Thanks, Roy. Great points. There’s much concern about online courses, especially when students take classes independently at home.
Cheating for example. And the ability to stay focused.
I have taken some online university courses in special ed. (USF) and you must really pay attention if you want to do well. It requires a good teacher at the other end who can make the right demands and monitor your progress.
Not to mention a highly motivated person like you. How do we know if a person on a screen is the person we got to know? Do you really know me? Can you decide on the basis of our communication if I deserve to be trusted with children?
Another great point. How does one know the credentials of the person doing the instruction?
I’m sure cheating wouldn’t be a problem if the students enjoy what they are learning. Letting students take control of what they learn (with some restraints of course) would not be a bad idea. Especially with technology advancing, we don’t have to memorize facts anymore, because we can look it up in a matter of seconds. it’s about time people want to change the way the school system is. It is becoming outdated and will eventually be useless unless it evolves with us.
What kind of proof do you have to justify your comments? You really believe preschoolers and young children need to sit on screens all day?
I never said that. even if that was so, they are most likely doing it already so why not have them doing something that can prove to be useful?
You’re correct. You didn’t exactly say that, so I apologize. You seem imply that technology is better though. There are no studies to indicate this. And in many places young children are placed on computers without considering their developmental needs. That’s the concern. But thanks for commenting and, again, I am sorry for being abrupt. You are welcome to the debate.